Solarious - stumbling away from the grid

Here’s a link to a good article about what’s happening to our global food supplies, and why it’s translating to more at the register.

Read the full story here

As we deepen into our self-created oil and energy crisis, we can only expect more articles like this, and more future costs, not fewer. Consider planting a garden if you don’t have one already. It takes a bit of trial and error to discover how particular plants grow. If you have something you “can’t live without”, try growing it a few times. Soon, it may be the only way for you to get it!

Nice. No, really, everything about this concept is nice, from the idea, to the execution and the website. So nice that you’d better go check out the website for yourself, so I’m only going to provide one chart here as a teaser.

This house does it all. Collects water, uses high-capacity solar, makes its own compost, and looks amazing while doing it through your laptop. And you can construct one in under a weekend. How’s that for simple? It’s certainly inspiring.

Click Here to See Geoff Lawton’s Dead Sea Restoration Project

This EXCELLENT presentation gives you a nice video overview of a successful xeriscaping and land restoration project carried out in the Dead Sea area of Jordan. You can actually watch the progression from desert to a lush canopy of green and edible foods. And to see that the salt levels of the soil dropped so dramatically is quite a convincing argument to try it yourself. Geoff Lawton and his team are genius to have done this. If you are considering doing your lawn with drought-friendly plants, or in converting waste-space to something much more beautiful while restoring the natural balance of the soil, please check out this site!

Here is SoCal, the Salton Sea is a popular tourist destination, as it is a similar environment to the Dead Sea. In fact, like the Dead Sea, the Salton Sea is getting saltier every year as its water evaporates. Given the hot temperatures (there is a reason that all the spas of Palm Springs are so popular!), there is a lot of sandy desert for every patch of green. Do you live there? Try this and send us pictures!

I so need one of these!  Oh, wait, no grass to mow.  But you probably have some, and just look at this beauty!  At $4,000, it’s no yard-sale find, but with built-in sensors that detect yard obstacles, it reduces the amount of work you have to do down to simply setting the thing out and turning it on.  Swimming devotees will recognize this approach as like that of the pool Simon, and it also falls close to the Roomba technology.   And of course, like many products featured here, it’s totally powered by the sun.  With one of these and a few free hours to watch it wander, you might actually be HAPPY when your spouse tells you to mow the lawn!

If you are planning a garden, I can’t recommend enough that you go organic in your approach. After all, since 50% of all pesticides used in America are sprayed on cotton (and therefore your clothes!), you’ve likely already got a lot of toxins to offset in your life! However, the topic of organic gardening can be a little intimidating at first, as it is so large.

If you want to get your feet wet, while learning from experts in their field, why not volunteer at a working organic farm in your area? The originator of all organic exchange websites, WWOOF.org has many such opportunities to do just that. And it’s sorted by area, so you’ll be able to find something local. Also, try OrganicVolunteers.com for similar invitations. Most of the opportunities listed allow for you to sample or take home some of the produce you help to tend for a taste test. It’s like a free grad school education with an excellent cafeteria!

Do you know of any other great sites? Post them here!

Balsam Fir Pitch

Medicinal plant list

More edible and medicinal plants

Articles about Australian medicinal plants

Forage with Wildman Steve Brill

Whoa! That’s a lot of information! While we’re on the topic of edible plants… when planting your garden, why not plant things that do double or even triple duty, providing medicine and or nourishment along with shady beauty? While every locale has its own host of plants that fit this bill while still thriving ecologically, you may be surprised to find that plants you’ve known and loved for years have different uses than you’d imagined. Take the above article on the balsam fir. My house growing up had one in the front yard. I knew it as the good climbing tree, and my mother no doubt saw it as “that darn tree that ends up all over the kids’ clothes”, but neither of us ever thought that the sticky pitch might have other uses. Again, knowing more about your local environment can only enhance the pleasures of living there, and bring you more into balance with nature. Happy reading!

If you’re into off-grid living, then it’s quite possible you also like to escape to the great outdoors every once in a while. And though you’re super smart and careful, you may find yourself in a position one day when you need to literally go back to nature for some food. Even if you don’t find yourself in this unenviable position, it’s valuable to know what in your environment is toxic, and what plants are edible. It makes for great conversation when you can pick up a plant off the side of the trail and offer it to a friend! Read this survival tip from simplesurvival.net to help you understand the risks and processes for testing the flora of your area for edibility.

You can also learn a lot by reading books on Native American traditional cooking from tribes local to you. Though there are not always a wealth of cookbooks out there, several websites catalog user contributions on the topic. Here’s an interesting example with a few recipes and a different interface from most. NativeTech.org is another good site. Look out for salad recipes and vegetable side dishes. They often include native plants that are uniquely well-suited to grow in your area. These would be excellent candidates for planting in your own home garden. Finally, when you do have a crop of something native, experiment often with cooking it different ways (bonus points for cooking with solar or alternative energy sources!), and share that knowledge with others. You can do it here if you like! That way, the wondrous internet can do its job in spreading the word about native plants. And we can all enjoy an exotic meal together without ever hitting the supermarket. Yum!